


Chasing a Forever

by Avana



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU-due to season 2, Character Study, Dark and disturbing themes, F/F, added backstory, character study with plot, some things are implied
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 03:12:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avana/pseuds/Avana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Marissa...we'll be friends forever."</p><p>Those were the words young Abigail Hobbs spoke to her best friend. They swore they'd be friends forever beneath a great maple tree in the fields of Minnesota. </p><p>This was not the forever they intended to have together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone finds something similar to this from Mindful Demon on fanfiction or Joytricia on Tumblr we're friends and it's not plagiarism. We tend to bounce story ideas and headcanon's off each other. Frankly, Arissa is more her ship than mine but this story wouldn't leave me alone. This story is included as an intermission in the fanfiction version of The Festival of Three under Shiko-Rae

Soft, golden light shone through the warm green leaves of spring. Across the grass carpeted floor a dappled pattern of light and shadow played. The light spring breeze whispered through the air carrying soft scents of old rain and new growth.

Two young girls sat beneath a tall maple tree. They leaned side by side against its thick trunk in exhaustion. They had spent the day running through the fields together and now lazily absorbed the mild warmth of spring time.

A call in the distance broke the easy tranquility.

"Abigail!”

One of the girls sighed in quiet dismay. Her shoulder length brown hair was nearly pin straight and fluttered around her head as she looked at the girl beside her. Blue eyes locked with blue eyes.

“I’ll be here tomorrow, Rissa.” Abigail stood slowly and reluctantly plodded in the direction of the call.

The other girl still sitting against the tree looked gloomily after the departing figure. She looked very much like her friend. They had the same brown hair, although her own was perhaps a bit fuller and carried a very slight curl toward the bottom. Similar blue eyes sat in a face rounded by youth. However, where Abigail was pale her friend was tan.

* * *

Day turned to the night and the tanned figure still sat wallowing in the shadow of the tree. No one had come to call this girl home. As a chill started to set in the girl stretched her cramped limbs and reluctantly headed home.

* * *

Days turned to weeks and the two girls continued to meet in the fields by the maple tree. The new green of spring started to darken as summer approached, and the weather grew hotter and more humid.

“Marissa…” Abigail murmured softly. Marissa turned to her friend surprised by the serious tone and the use of her full name. “We’ll be friends forever.” Here Abigail looked back at her friend their eyes meeting.

Marissa felt the fluttering of her heart beneath the layers of her clothes and skin and ribs. She felt a smile gracing her lips because forever was something no one had promised her before.

_"Useless girl!” A scream rose. Shadows flickered and an over head light blew out in a flurry of sparks. Things crashed and shattered on the floor._

Flinching slightly Marissa pushed those memories down. Well no one had promised her forever in a _good_ way. The smile from earlier crossed her face once more growing larger by the second.

“Yeah we’ll be friends forever…Abigail.” Marissa returned the sentiment using Abigail’s full name, rather than her usual affectionate “Abby”, to emphasize the solemnity of their vow. They held each other’s gazes for several more moments.

A sudden breeze blew their hair into their faces. Abigail stifled a giggle before beaming at her friend and standing. She grabbed Marissa’s hand tugging her from her spot on the ground and running back into the fields her friend in tow.

* * *

The next time Abigail saw her friend she found her bleeding and bruised, huddled in a ball beneath their tree. Her eyes widened and filled with tears and fear. She ran to Marissa relieved when she found her friend still warm and breathing.

"Oh god, Marissa!” Marissa stirred beneath her friend’s touch cracking her eyelids open and squinting in pain at the figure above her.

“Abby…” She croaked weakly. Blurry memories of drunken slurs and hard fists and vicious kicks flew around her brain. She coughed out a bit of blood pooling in her mouth from her split lips and the wounds she made from biting her own tongue.

The two sat in the darkness for hours Abigail doing the best she could to tend to her friend and Marissa doing her best to hide how much agony was pulsing through her body. 

* * *

Marissa wounds eventually healed and she continued to spend her days beneath that maple tree. Summer faded to fall and the leaves changed colors before falling and collecting into crumpled, dead piles at her feet. However, Abigail had not come again.

* * *

“No, Dad! You’ve kept me from her for a week. No more!” The shout rang clear through the house.

“Abigail, please…” Her father pleaded with her but his daughter would have none of it.

“No! You didn’t see her that day! She was so…so broken.” Abigail’s shouting had faded to a pained whisper and tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. Angrily she pushed them back and glared at her father.

“Abigail, I just want you safe. That girl isn’t good for you and neither is her family. Please, all I want is you safe.” Unfortunately for him his words only riled his daughter up even further.

“Safe?! How dare you speak of safe when-when…” Abigail’s voice cut off, her words all bunched up in her throat and tangled with pure rage. She spared one last glare at her father before whirling around and sprinting from the house. She spared a moment to rip her father’s coat from the hanger by the door. A scarf came with it wrapping around her limbs and almost sending her to the ground. Angrily she tugged harder pulling the hanger to the ground. It fell with a resounding thud. The sound of the door slamming behind her echoed in the silence of her house.

The house was still for several long moments before the man, stunned in the wake of his daughter’s fury, sprinted after her.

However, by the time he slammed the front door open his daughter was commandeering the car and jerkily pulling from the drive way. _His eleven-year-old baby girl had just taken off with the only car._  

* * *

A figure lay sprawled across the roots of that tall tree in the clearing. Her hair splayed out from her head intermingled with grass and leaves. She gazed at the pale moonlight that filtered in through the stretching branches and the few leaves that still clung there.

“…I…should have known better…there is no such thing…as…a good forever…” She clenched her eyes shut as a traitorous tear leaked from beneath her lashes. It crept its way down her cheek and landed silently on the strands of her hair.

A sudden wind whipped the branches of the tree ripping several leaves from their precarious perches and sending them to the ground.

Marissa groped blindly at her side clutching her fingers around the handle of a blade that had been hidden in the shadows. The blade gleamed cruelly in the moon light. She sat up and lifted it shakily toward her face smiling a bitter smile that didn’t belong on anyone’s face let alone the face of an eleven-year-old child.

“I’m not useless. …I’ll give myself forever, Daddy…see?” In one quick motion she slashed her throat open just as a voice echoed across the clearing.

“NO!”

Red started spewing from the gash across her neck just as the sprinting figure of Abigail reached her. Marissa fell back, the blood loss already making her head hazy. Abigail caught Marissa’s head gently even as tears poured from her eyes. A litany of “no’s” fell from her trembling lips. Abigail now thankful for the scarf used it to press against the bleeding wound in Marissa’s throat. It curved cruelly against the delicate flesh like a demented smile. _You’re too late_ it jeered at her. _This is all your fault_.

Marissa’s vision blurred as she gazed up at the sobbing Abigail.

“You promised me forever.” Abigail only sobbed harder at these words.

“I know...I know” She babbled almost incoherently in reply. “I should have gotten away sooner. Oh god, Marissa I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Sorry’s joined the no’s and both words were interlaced with pleads to God to save her friend.

She continued to press the scarf against her friend’s throat hoping it was applying the right pressure to stem the bleeding. Her other hand fumbled in the pocket of her dad’s coat. She had stolen the keys from it to reach her friend and now her fingers closed around what would hopefully be a life saver. She yanked the phone from the pocket so quickly she nearly dropped it. It was her left hand that fumbled with the bottoms as her dominate right hand tried to keep her friend alive.

“911 what is your emergency?”

“Yes, h-hello please my friend is bleeding from her neck. …S-s-self-inflicted knife wound. Please”

“Okay, come on, sweetie, I need you to remain calm. Where is your current location?”

If there were time Abigail would have shrieked at this person’s audacity to ask her to be calm. However, Abigail _knew_ she _had_ to be calm. She took a deep fortifying breath racking her brain for their location.

“Lincoln Field!” Abigail blurted as soon as the answer came to her. “Just by Lincoln field…oh god, please! Please.”

“An ambulance is on its way.” If anymore words were said they went unheard as Abigail let the phone tumble from her grasp not even bothering to hang up on her end. With both her hands free Abigail continued to apply pressure and prayed to God. It felt as if hours were passing. Abigail’s tear filled, red-rimmed eyes kept staring into the dulling eyes of her friend.

The shrill sound of a siren and the almost blinding flashing of red and white lights was the most wonderful thing Abigail had ever seen or heard.

After that, time passed in a bit of a blur. Abigail remembered people pouring from the ambulance gently lifting her friend onto a stretcher. Their voices all blended together. All she could hear was the rushing of blood in her ears and her heart pounded away like a war drum in her chest. She remembered demanding a place in the ambulance beside the friend she’d left alone for a week. She clutched Marissa’s hand even as the paramedics worked around her.

_Please, God_


	2. Shadows

_Beep Beep Beep_

Each methodical, cold sound of the heart monitor was another silent accusation.

 _It's all your fault,_ the spiking line whispered.

 _Why did you wait so long?_ It crooned in the sterile light of the ICU.

_Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep_

Abigail's fists clenched by her side as she countered off each beep in rounds of seven. One week, seven days, one hundred and sixty-eight hours, one hundred thousand and eighty minutes, six hundred and four thousand and eight hundred seconds, that's how long she had waited to break away from her father and run to her friend's side.

_One..._

_Beep_

_Two..._

_Beep_

_Three..._

_Beep_

_Four..._

_Beep_

_Five..._

_Beep_

_Six.._

_Beep_

_Seven.._

_Beep_

Abigail's eyes fluttered closed and darkness started to swim at the corners of her vision. She was so tired.

_One..._

_Beep_

_Two..._

_Beep_

_Three..._

_Bee- SLAM_

The door banged open with a surprising viciousness that sent Abigail jolting into wakefulness. She shot up out of her chair partially surprised and partially outraged at the noise level. Just as she went to open her mouth to harshly rebuke whoever was disturbing her friend's room she caught sight of her father's absolutely enraged face.

"Abigail Hobbs!" He all but bellowed as he stalked forward. When he reached her he grasped her arms furiously, tightly enough to leave bruises.  He spluttered incoherent in his rage while his daughter looked on petrified in the wake of his complete fury.

Faster than she could blink he had slapped her across the face. Stunned she moved to press a hand to her smarting cheek but her father was faster. He jerked her head forward, cupping her face in his hands. He looked her dead in the eye.

"My beautiful Abigail...do you know how long it took me to find you?! You never came home!" He enunciated each word clearly; his rage now colder and sharper rather than hot and erupting.

"Darling Abigail you will _never_ risk your life for that filthy bitch again." He rested his forehead against hers pressing hard kisses to each of her cheeks and then her eyelids. He pulled away slightly to press one to her forehead and then one to each corner of her lips.

Finally knocked from her stupor Abigail tried to pull away now furious herself and disgusted. "Marissa is _not_ a bitch!" She hissed from between her clenched teeth. "Nor is she filthy! You are! You disgust m-"

Her father cut her off again with another harsh slap. He pulled her to his chest before she could recover. "I love you, Abby." He murmured cruelly against her hair, purposefully invoking Marissa's endearment for his daughter. "Stop making me hurt you." He pulled back again to look at her, eyeing the reddening of both of her cheeks. "We're done here."

Abigail made another move to protest, positively seething, but he was suddenly inches from her face once more. "Don't make a scene. We are leaving. Rebel and I promise you, you won't be the only one to suffer the consequences." He looked pointedly at Marissa.

Abigail bit her lip harshly following her father's gaze to her dearest friend. Marissa looked pale and small swaddled in the hospital sheets and attached to numerous machines and wires. She looked like her life could be snuffed out as one would pinch out a candle. Her eyes trailed back to her father. _He would destroy her_.

Garret Jacob Hobbs swooped down picking up his daughter and pressing her to his chest. Silently she wept; her pain too great to articulate. She trembled in his arms. He made his way out of the hospital with easy excuses to any nurses or doctors that saw him. They disappeared swiftly into the darkening evening.

* * *

_One..._

_Beep_

_Two..._

_Beep_

_Three..._

_Beep_

_Four..._

_Beep_

_Five..._

_Beep_

_Six.._

_Beep_

_Seven.._

_Beep_

Seven days later Marissa Schurr woke up alone. 

* * *

Weeks and then months fell away like the dying leaves of autumn. Abigail and Marissa never met again in that time. Occasionally they passed each other on the street and they eyed the other from the corner of their sight, but then they'd walk on like two strangers. If Abigail heard the wind trailing after her whispering _abandoner_ , she only faltered the first few times.

* * *

A firm hand gripped Abigail's shoulder steadying her. Her father loomed over her like a cage gently positioning her limps.

"Easy now, Abby."

Despite his words Abigail tensed a little under his touches.

"Relax." He breathed in her ear. Forcibly Abigail relaxed herself knowing it'd hurt more if she didn't get this over with.

"Good. Now keep it in your sights." She did as she was told adjusting her grip to keep the doe locked in the crosshairs of her hunting rifle. Her finger slowly squeezed the trigger and with a sharp crack and jarring recoil the doe fell.

The two approached the fallen creature. Abigail eyed the corpse with sorrow. Every doe that fell under her sights felt like murder. Every doe looked like Marissa. The graceful limbs and the gentle eyes, Abigail saw Marissa peering out from them.

"Remember Abby we honor every part of her. Otherwise it's _murder_." Abigail just cringed as her father had her help haul the doe up to his hunting cabin.

* * *

Two weeks later it was a real girl the pair hunted down and not a doe. Garret Jacob Hobbs cruelly slashed the girl's throat open before placing his daughter on top of her. Abigail stared down into blue eyes so like her own so like Marissa's. She looked down at the same brown hair, the same skin, even the same general facial shape. Abigail stared as blood poured out of the same wound.

"Look at her, Abby." He muttered. "She's suffering. End her misery. You can't end little _Rissa's_. Your face alone torments her, but you can help this poor girl." Garret Jacob Hobbs moved behind his daughter gently caressing her arms as he pressed a blade into her numb hand. He harshly encircled her hand with his own crushing her fingers and palm around the knife. "That's it Abby. Good girl." His other arm wrapped around Abigail possessively as he moved to fully straddle the dying girl. He pressed Abigail into his chest as he directed her other hand with his own. Slowly, lovingly he pressed the blade into the girl. Together, Abigail's hand in his own, they carved up the poor child. Dropping the knife he took both her hands in his before placing them over her heart. It beat wildly like a rabbit's. He placed a kiss just behind Abigail's ear and whispered, "See, she's at peace."

Abigail's glazed eyes just peered into the distance as blood slowly trailed down her chest from their joined hands.

* * *

Snow fell and then suddenly it was spring. The air was warm and sweet and Abigail barely felt any of it. What she did feel was the warm hand encircling her wrist dragging her off into the woods. She made to pull away but then she saw the whirl of brown hair of the figure that pulled her along. In her head she saw flashes of maple trees, and flower fields, and death, and blood, and _Rissa_. So she let her still dearest friend pull her along even as she saw only corpses along the way.

They reached a small clearing; it wasn't nearly as big as their old field with the maple tree, but it was fairly pretty and speckled with a few wild flowers. Marissa spun to face her still grasping her wrist. She looked agonized but hopeful. Her lips trembled and her tongue darted out to wet them.

"I- I know now it was your father that kept you away. Please, Abby. I'm sorry I didn't fight harder. I- I." Although Abby flinched lightly at the endearment marred by her father's tongue she still pulled Marissa forward. She clutched the now sobbing form of her friend and silent tears ran down her own cheeks.

"No, Riss-Marissa." Abigail's own tongue stumbled over the old name that now tasted bitter like copper, like blood. "I'm sorry. I'm the one that should have fought harder. I was so _scared_." She whispered now as their legs buckled and they collapsed together in a crying heap. "I'm still so _scared_."


End file.
